Welcome to My Life
by Frank-da-rabbit
Summary: It has been seven years since Rick Muarry held me at gunpoint. Seven years since he took his last breath hating me." Emma's life after seven years after TSS.


**A/N: This fic is about Emma and her life if she had kept slipping after Time Stands Still. The title comes from a Simple Plan song by the same name, although the fic is not based off of the song. This will be multi-chaptered and I have no **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. So if you sue, you get nothing. Ha!**

_**Frank-da-Rabbit**_

**

* * *

Welcome to My Life**

It has been seven years since Rick Muarry held me at gunpoint. Seven years since he took his last breath hating me. Seven years since Emma Nelson, _Environmentalist Crusader_, had perished with a single, resounding gunshot. And seven years _to the day_ Emma Nelson, _the Crazy Fuck Up_, rose from the fiery ashes like a Phoenix. It's been seven years, and I'm still barely holding on. The ledge of sanity has held strong, but it's slowly crumbling under my bleeding, callused fingers. Any day, any minute, any moment, I can lose my grip and be gone. One weak, slippery finger, and I'll fall into the oblivion I've been avoiding since Rick Muarry died under my petrified gaze.

I had found some sort of solace, though. However dilapidated it seemed to be. It seemed only fitting that I find it in the most unstable, unreliable place imaginable. Jayson Hogart. How fucking wonderful was that? I was weak when he found me; a tense, pseudo-happy façade of the girl I had once been. He found me in my darkest moment and convinced me that I needed him. And I did, in some sick, sadistic way. I needed the way he hurt me, both emotionally and physically. I needed to feel needed, if only for my weathered knees. I needed to feel pleasure, if only from his calloused hands. I needed to feel pain, if only to take my mind off my crumbling life. I guess I just needed to _feel_.

There was no love between us. The klepto and the environmentalist. There was nothing but physical chemistry, if that. We were lost, and together, we had some hope. I wasn't walking in a daze; he wasn't slowly fading. We were stable and apathetic. _'Better than crashing and burning,'_ he'd always say. But there was never any love in the mix. Just a crazy lust that had built itself upon a need for something good. A need for something normal. And we found it, albeit clichéd sounding, in each other.

Before that first night in the ravine, my life had hit rock bottom. Only it wasn't rock. Not at all. It had turned out to be more dirt and shit than I had ever had in my life before. And I was sinking. Fast. But instead of him being my savior, riding in on that beautiful white steed and whisking me away into the sunset, he seemed to be the shovel that was thrown down my shit-filled hole. A shovel that I graciously accepted and used to dig myself in deeper, and after that night, I couldn't stop digging. And frankly, I didn't want to. He was getting me away from my troubles, however destructively, and that's all I had ever hoped for.

But the problem was, after my night of false redemption, I couldn't let go. I couldn't let him be. I couldn't let _us _be. I had to have more. So I continued in my ruination excitedly. I had this foolish idea that if I could just hold on to him, if I could ignore the small part of 'Emma the Perfectionist' that survived Rick Muarry, I'd be okay. I could never be okay going back to that, to _her_. I'd never be the same. I'd just be a cheap replica of innocence and purity. I'd be tainted. So, tainted and broken, I clung to Jayson Hogart with every shattered part of my soul.

There was a tiny flaw in that plan, though. A fraying in the rope that kept me tied to the ledge of sanity and away from the pit of masochism. Him. How was I supposed to make him hold on if he didn't want to? How was I supposed to convince him that we needed each other? Well, I couldn't and I didn't. He left me first chance he had. And I was ready to fall again when he showed back up, brandishing a new, stronger rope. That wasn't the last time he left, and soon, over the years, I lost count. I'd given up in expectations of Jayson Hogart, as well as life. I'd given up in anything every improving or changing or even moving forward. Until tonight, when fate finally decided to kick in.

_**To Be Continued…**_

**

* * *

A/N: And there you have it, the first chapter, hope it was to your liking. Now, if you'd be so kind as to review, I'd be much obliged. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
